


so come down from your mountain and stand where we've been

by hesperia



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:54:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hesperia/pseuds/hesperia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They couldn't leave him at the Wall, that was clear, so they'd continued South to Winterfell, and they brought Jon with them. And each night Alys prayed to her Old Gods, to the New Gods, to the Lord of Light, to anyone who would listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so come down from your mountain and stand where we've been

Alys throws the handful of bloody rags into the fire, stepping back to hold her skirts away from the sparks that fly as the rags hit the coals. A pot of tea steeps above the flames and she stirs it before ladling it into a small tin cup. Settling down next to Jon she can already see the blood seeping through the new bandages. She'd changed them three times that day already, and packed the wounds with what little moss she'd been able to find as it hardly grew this far North. 

"Just a few sips, Jon Snow," she says, cradling his head in her lap, holding the cup of tea to his mouth. "It tastes bad and smells worse, but you need to drink it." He's barely been conscious since the attack, and even now Alys has to pour the tea into his mouth drip by drip until half the cup is empty. His skin is feverish against her hand, and she presses her palm into the snow to cool it before pressing it against his face. 

By the fire Alys can see Sigorn and the others eating and talking, passing around the skeins of wine. They couldn't leave him at the Wall, that was clear, so they'd continued South to Winterfell, and they brought Jon with them. And each night Alys prayed to her Old Gods, to the New Gods, to the Lord of Light, to anyone who would listen. 

"Come," Sigorn says to her later, when he comes to stand by where she sits at Jon's side. "It is time you slept."

"I can't leave him," Alys argues, though her eyes ache from the smoke of the fire and the fact that she has been awake for almost two days. "Something could happen in the night, he needs to be watched." _He needs me. He saved me, now I must save him_ , she thinks but does not say. 

Sigorn calls for one of the men, a wilding whose name Alys cannot remember to sit with Jon. She leaves reluctantly, but she goes with her husband to their furs. Sigorn's hands find her in the dark, pulling up her skirts to push her smallclothes to her knees as his fingers stroke her, readying her for him. He slips into her from behind, his body pressed tight against hers. It is not unpleasant, his mouth hot and wet along her neck, his hand cupping her breast as he thrusts into her, but it does not prove to be the distraction she knows Sigorn means it to be. Later when Sigorn's breathing has stilled, Alys sits up and wipes away the remnants of his seed on her thighs as she rights her clothes and slips out of the furs. 

She goes to Jon's makeshift bed, sending the wildling away as she takes her seat next to Jon. His skin is reasonably cooler, and Alys sends a prayer of thanks, hoping now that the worst has past. She carefully removes the bandage from his neck, the least damaging of the wounds, and cleans it with the rags she made from her extra shift. She goes along, carefully changing each bandage, trying in the dim firelight to note if the redness and swelling of the wounds has lessened. 

"You're a lucky bastard," Alys whispers more to herself than to Jon. "Any other spots and you'd have been dead before we set two feet from the Wall." 

"Don't feel very lucky." His voice startles her and she almost falls backwards but she catches herself, leaning over to look him in the eye. 

"Hush, less talking and more healing is what you need Jon Snow." Alys says, but she finds herself smiling, and she touches her hand to his cheek. "We're on our way to Winterfell." 

Jon nods, and reluctantly drinks the tea Alys brings from the fire and holds it to his lips. 

"Sleep now, Jon Snow." Alys says, as she moves to cradle his head in her lap again. He takes a moment to settle, his head turning one way and then the other. Alys softly strokes her fingers in his hair, humming a tune her mother used to sing to soothe her. "Tomorrow we make for Winterfell, and you will need all your strength." 

The Battle of Winterfell as it will be known, is brutal and bloody and Alys runs between the injured, tending the wounds that not so bad, and making the ones not long for this world as comfortable as she can. It had never been said of Alys Karstark that she had a healing touch, but in the days of the battle, Alys finds there is much one can accomplish if left with no choice but to move forward. Her most difficult patient is Jon, who has tried to get up from his bed at least a dozen times, tried to sneak away from her makeshift infirmary to join his men. 

"And what good will you be if you pass out before you make it even out of the Wolfswood?" Alys asks him as she leads him with a firm hand on his arm back to the makeshift bed. 

"I should be with them!" Jon says angrily, pulling his arm out of Alys' grasp but she sees him wince in pain at the sudden jerk of his body. "If I die with them then I have died with honor, not bleeding out like a stuck pig!" 

"They fight so that you might reclaim what was once your father's. If you die there is nothing left to fight for, Jon Snow." 

On the last day of the battle, Alys cannot fight him anymore and she binds his wounds as tightly as possible, packing them with all she can think of. "You're too stubborn by half," she says, her teeth clenched as hot tears prick the corners of her eyes. He smiles at her for all but a moment and is gone, heading off into the distance where Stannis and the rest have convened. 

It is Jon who brings Sigorn's body to her, and Jon who holds her as she cries, tears streaming down her face, her hair whipping around her wildly with the wind. It is the guilt that eats at her the most, that she had not prayed for Sigorn, had not called upon the Old Gods and the New, or even the Lord of Light to protect her husband. She does not have enough hands to count the times she had prayed for Jon to live. 

Alone in her grief, she prepares Sigorn's body, washing him of blood, his own and others. His face is unmarred, and Alys reaches out to touch him, to stroke her hand along his cheek as she had never done when they were married. The coldness of his skin startles her, makes her think of the dead men with clear blue eyes that Jon had told them of. There are many who died in the days during the battle, those who fought for Stannis, for Jon, for the North. They burn them all. 

Winterfell is a shell of what it once was, but the few chambers that have not been damaged by fire and battle provide more comfort than Alys has had in days, and when she collapses into the bed she is so tired, both physically and mentally, that she has barely rested her head on the mattress before she falls asleep. 

When she wakes it is dark in the chamber, save for a candle that sits on the table by the bed. Jon is slumped in the chair, his head tilted towards his chest, his hair falling over his face. "Jon," Alys whispers, reaching out to touch his arm, to shake him awake. 

He isn't startled by her touch, but opens his eyes slowly looking over at her through heavy lidded eyes. "I couldn't find you," Jon says, straightening in the chair, tilting his head to one side and then the other to stretch his neck. "This was my old room, you know. That was the bed I slept in from the time I can remember." 

"Come lie down," she says, pulling back the blanket of furs so that he might climb in. "Its not good for you to sleep in the chair." 

Jon looks at her hesitantly, and she wonders if he's thinking of his vows to the Night's Watch, and how they no longer apply now that he's been legitimized by King Stannis. He stands before the bed and slowly undoes the ties of his doublet, slipping it off his shoulders with just a soft wince so he's left in just his shirt and breeches.

Alys had taken off her gown and stays before she'd laid down, and as Jon joins her in the bed she realizes just how thin the material of her shift is. She can feel the heat of his body against her as he slips his arm beneath her head, holding her to his chest. 

A sennight after they burn Sigorn's body, Alys bleeds. She had hoped for some sort of redemption in the fact that she might have carried his child, that House Thenn hadn't been created and died out in less then one harvest. 

"I'm ill," she says, when Jon comes to her chambers that night, after she'd left the meal just as the plates had been cleared, not staying for the singing and the dancing. "I wanted to sleep." 

"Do you need a maester? I'll get one for you," he says, beginning to turn away. 

"No." Alys says, firmly. "I'm fine. I had thought I might be with Sigorn's child..."

"Oh."

"But I'm not, that much is certain," she says, and she thinks that once Jon Snow would have blushed and turned away from her. Now he just reaches for her, cupping his hand on her cheek in comfort. She finds his touch soothing, lets herself lean into it as they stand in the doorway of her chamber. 

"Get some sleep, Alys," Jon says, and he leans in, pressing a kiss to her cheek. Alys watches his walk down the hall before closing the door and returning to the bed. Under the blanket of furs, as warm and comfortable as she is, the bed feels too big for her. 

In the weeks that follow, as Stannis rebuilds his army and Jon rebuilds Winterfell, Alys finds herself slipping into a routine not unlike her life at Karhold. At first it is because Jon asks her opinion on things, for he knows little of how a keep truly runs. But before long, it is Alys who is asked about stocking food and supplies, about where the windows of the new Great Keep shall go. 

"You have become the defacto Lady of Winterfell," Jon says, when he finds her in the newly built solar that had once been Lady Catelyn's. 

"Oh, I don't think so. They just come to me so as not to bother you and the King. I'm sorry," she says, looking down at her hands. "I will tell them to come to you from now on."

Jon shakes his head as he enters the room and takes a seat in one of the chairs by the fire. "I just meant, perhaps you should be Lady of Winterfell in name, not just in practice." 

Alys stops picking at the hem of her sleeve and looks over at him. "Jon...what are you suggesting?" 

"Stannis thinks I should marry before we head South. He says if there is a Winterfell to fight for the men will fight harder. There is no Winterfell without a woman to call it's Lady." He looks up at her, and there is a hopeful expression in his eyes that Alys has not seen, in anyone, for a very long time. "Say yes, Alys," he urges quietly, taking her hand and holding it, kissing the inside of her palm. 

They are married in the Godswood of Winterfell in the name of the Old Gods their fathers kept. There is no cloak for Alys to wear, and no cloak for Jon to don on her shoulders, but there are vows and words and when it is over Jon kisses her, his hands cupping her cheeks as he brushes his mouth softly over hers. 

Like her first wedding, there is no grand feast, only a hearty meal shared with the King and his army. There are no musicians save for Mance and his lute, but the singing of the wildlings is joyous and Alys thinks that perhaps all will not be lost. The Wildlings are not so enthralled with the idea of the bedding, and it is only a handful of Stannis' men that pick her up and carry her to the newly built chambers for the Great Keep. She lets them have their gropes and grabs, then pushes them out of the room and closes the door. 

Finally alone, Alys pours herself a large cup of wine and drinks it in one long pull. She finds she is more nervous now that at her wedding to Sigorn. Perhaps, thinks Alys, it is because I have always wanted to be Lady of Winterfell, and now I am. She had imagined a vastly different future then, one where she had been wed to Robb, and how his mother, Lady Catelyn had been there, to guide Alys, to show her what is was to be the Lady of a keep as great and as old as Winterfell. 

She undresses by the fire, folding her gown and shift into a tidy pile before stepping behind the screen to quickly wash herself. One of the wildling women, Gaeta, had sprinkled winter rose petals into the water, and Alys is grateful for such a small act of kindness. The night gown she wears had been a gift from Queen Selyse, and Alys is sure she has never touched as fine a material in her life. It is smooth as silk but light as air, and when she slips it over her head, she realizes with a blush that it is completely transparent. 

The door of the chamber opens slowly, and Jon steps inside, ignoring the calls of the men behind him. He still wears his breeches, though his shirt and doublet have been discarded elsewhere, and it is the first time that Alys gets to look upon him without guilt or shame. 

"You look lovely," he says, as he crosses the room to stand in front of her. He runs his hand along her bare arm, from shoulder to wrist, and Alys feels her skin sing from just the slightest touch. 

"I look naked," she says, laughing and he laughs too, but his eyes are dark as he looks up and down her body. It makes Alys' cunt clench, the way he looks at her, the hunger in his eyes. He kisses her then, and she slips her arms over his shoulders. Through the thin material, her breasts brush against his chest and her nipples harden from the sensation. While the kiss begins gentle and reverant, he longer he kisses her, the more demanding it becomes. "Come to bed," Alys says, ducking away from him and taking his hand, leading him to the bed. 

Letting go of his hand she climbs on the bed, the nightrail riding up her thighs as she moves to lie in the middle of the bed. He moves over her, kissing her mouth again, slower and deeper, and then down to the base of her throat and lower still to the edge of her neckline, and the tops of breasts. He slips a knee between her legs, not pushing them open but fitting one muscular thigh up between her own. 

"If I was a less patient man I would rip this right off you," he groans, fighting with the thin fabric to slip it off her shoulder, her breast now exposed to him. He nudges at his breast with his nose, rubbing his face over her nipple until it slips into his mouth, which is open and waiting. Alys thinks perhaps all coherent thoughts leave her body at that moment, as his mouth closes over her nipple, suckling softly. 

Alys moves restlessly beneath him, her hands sweeping over his back and running her fingers over every bump of his spine as he licks and sucks his way along her skin. She can feel how wet and swollen with desire she is against his thigh, and she rocks her hips up against him as he cups the back of her knee, rubbing his thumb along the inside of her leg. 

"Please, Jon," she pleads, the words coming out in a rush of breath. 

"If I can have patience, so can you," he teases, but his hand moves higher up her thigh to cup her cunt, and Alys moans loudly when he presses two of fingers up inside of her. She makes small shuddering moans of pleasure as he does, and she rocks against his hand as if striving to draw him in. 

"Gods Alys," Jon groans, and he pulls away from her to rip open the buttons on the placket of his breeches to release his cock, and quickly settles himself back between her thighs. He takes her with one swift plunge and she can't help but cry out with anxious surprise. It does not hurt like the first time with Sigorn, but Jon is larger, thicker and it takes her a moment to adjust to his size. 

"Have I hurt you?" Jon asks, holding himself above her. 

Alys shakes her head, her hand reaching up to tangle itself in his hair, pulling him back down to kiss her, hard and fast. "It is good," she breathes, between their kisses. Jon holds her fast by the hips then, and pushes into her again. Once more and he is buried deep and he slips his arms beneath her knees and raises them to be able to enter her deeper, and instinctively she curls her legs around his waist, holding him in an embrace. 

With each thrust, Alys began to moan, louder and louder and she could feel Jon's pace increasing, as if each breathy cry spurred him onward. She opened her eyes as one of Jon's hands slid up along her arms and twined his fingers with hers, holding her hands above her head while he other hand slipped down between their bodies, his fingers rubbing over the bud at the top of her sex. 

It comes upon her suddenly, her peak, her back arching and stiffening, her release wresting a low, keening moan from her. She knows Jon can feel it too, the way she clenches around him, drawing him deeper. He spends inside her, collapsing half on her and half on his side, his face buried in her neck. 

"When do you leave?" she asks, hours later after they made love for a second time that night. Jon's head is resting on her stomach, and her fingers toil in his hair, playing with the sweat damp curls. 

"Stannis means to leave in a sennight, if not less." Jon says, and he sighs, turning his head to look up at her. "I don't want to leave you,"

"But you'll return to me," Alys says, and she bends over to kiss the tip of his nose. "And perhaps when you return I will be swollen with your child, but until then, you will have your work cut out for you."

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Mumford & Songs song "Babel".


End file.
